Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee Written evidence submitted by Maria Burke

I would like to comment on the case of Lennox the Belfast pet and companion of a handicapped 11 year old child.

I feel all these dogs should be chipped and neutered, also muzzled in public.

Lennox was ALL of these things and still he was seized by Belfast City Council.

If all these dogs were neutered the dangerous breeds would die out naturally.

I feel it is morally wrong to put the task of policing this matter in the hands of Council workers, who are neither trained nor required to care about the dogs they take into their care. They are obviously not required to be humane. Have a look at the photos on www.savelennox.co.uk. The cruelty speaks for itself.

In the Lennox case the dog is being kept in cruelly filthy conditions, doesn’t look like he has any light or even a clean bed. It is cruelty out and out and there are photos to prove it.

The draconian law of Killing all these dogs without reason is unnecessarily cruel, in the case of Brooke Barnes’ dog, this child may never recover emotionally from the loss of her pet.

Belfast City Council said he attacked one of them. There is no evidence of this. No one could show any injury. This dog never attacked anyone before and also was muzzled at the time.

Probably the dog was terrified out of his mind.

Ask yourself this, would a mother risk the health and safety of her child for a dangerous dog???

This dog has had offers of home in the south, I am one of those offers. I was told by an MP that Belfast City Council this would be an abuse of their legal system.

They did not mention emotional abuse of a handicapped child and abuse of an animal.

They did not mention that this dog IS NOT a Pitbull and has been proven not to be one—he is bulldog cross with Labrador—a dog renowned for his faithfulness.

Please change this law, make it workable for the family pets who are alive today, and have them all neutered so that they can’t breed anymore.

Please help the dog Lennox.

Please take these duties out of the hands of the Councils and give it to animal welfare agencies instead.

Please do something rational, the backlash of this law will be far reaching and bloody if this dog is executed by Belfast City Council.

There are over 166,000 signatories for the petition for his release.

Please be a voice of reason where there doesn’t seem to be any.

June 2012